30 years ago, 'The Blues Brothers' hit the big screen, crashing their way through Chicago. In the process, they cleared a path between Hollywood and the city

Christopher Borrelli wrote:John Belushi walked into Jane Byrne's office, sweat beading on his forehead. Dan Aykroyd waited outside the door. He gave Belushi, a Wheaton native, the breathing room to appeal to the mayor, hat in hand, local boy to local girl. Belushi was nervous. Byrne expected him to be. She sat at her desk stone-faced and silent, she recalled, offering no relief.

Belushi and Aykroyd wanted to shoot a movie in Chicago, but, as everyone knew, Chicago government wasn't exactly amenable to movie production. There wasn't an official policy or anything. Movies did shoot here. Brian DePalma shot "The Fury" here a year earlier. A lot of commercials were shot here. There was even a cottage porn industry in River North. But the cooperation needed for a large-scale Hollywood production — the kind Belushi, Aykroyd and director John Landis had in mind, only bigger — was out of the question. It had been for years.

It was 1979, and Byrne had just started her term. Mayor Richard J. Daley, the reason movie studios usually didn't consider Chicago a viable location, had died three years earlier. Byrne, now 76, remembered that Belushi "looked kind of studly, a sweaty guy already, but he wore a suit jacket and I thought he looked sick, to be honest. To the point that his hair was getting wet. I was a fan of his. But, of course, I wasn't going to say this right away."

So, for a laugh, she let him drown. She thought it would be funnier if she "acted like the first Daley, nodding like Buddha."

"I know how Chicago feels about movies," the comedian said to the mayor. Byrne nodded. Belushi said the studio would like to donate some money to Chicago orphanages in lieu of throwing a big, expensive premiere. "How much money?" she asked. He said, "$200,000." She nodded again.

"And so he kept talking," Byrne recalled. "Finally, I just said, 'Fine.' But he kept going. So again I said, 'Look, I said fine.' He said, 'Wait. We also want to drive a car through the lobby of Daley Plaza. Right though the window.' I remember what was in my mind as he said it. I had the whole 11th Ward against me anyway, and most of Daley's people against me. They owned this city for years, so when Belushi asked me to drive a car through Daley Plaza, the only thing I could say was, 'Be my guest!' He said, 'We'll have it like new by the morning.' I said, 'Look, I told you yes.' And that's how they got my blessing."

And that, more or less, is how Chicago became a regular location for movie production.

•••

On June 16, 1980, 30 years ago today, "The Blues Brothers" premiered. Keeping with Belushi's promise to eschew a flashy debut, it screened in Norridge for local crew and politicians only; the musical- comedy-action-film about two bluesmen on the run opened nationally a few days later. There will not be a parade to mark this moment, but there should be. Not just because, as film critic Gene Siskel wrote in his four-star review in the Tribune, it is "the best movie ever made in Chicago," etching iconic images in the imagination (Daley Plaza surrounded by hundreds of police and soldiers, a car chase in a shopping mall); not because it serves as a reminder of a city long gone, with nods to everything from the Illinois Nazi party to Maxwell Street to the swanky, now-defunct restaurant Chez Paul; not even because, as Aykroyd said by phone earlier this week, "it changed the way Chicago looked on film, and probably turned a lot of people on to Chicago in the first place."

But because without "The Blues Brothers" — "which we conceived as a love letter to the city," Landis said — Chicago might not have had much of a film industry. Or rather, it might have taken longer to develop. We might not have had the 900 film and TV productions that have shot in Illinois since 1980, spending an estimated $1 billion, mostly in Chicago, according to the Chicago Film Office. Comparatively, before 1980 (not including Chicago's healthy silent film industry in the 1910s and '20s), fewer than 100 features were shot here, and usually only for a scene or two. Indeed, if you have ever worked on a film here, recognized your office in "The Dark Knight" or pondered the havoc "Transformers 3," which starts shooting next month, could wreak on July traffic, thank "The Blues Brothers."

"I still hear from people who say they were 9 but they were in the background of this or that scene," Aykroyd said. "And you know what I tell people? You know the four stars on the Chicago flag? I tell them the stars represent the Chicago fire, the city's founding, the first Daley and 'The Blues Brothers.'"

"I remember old-timers thoroughly amazed at what the city was allowing," said Mark Hogan, who served as an electrician for production of the film, "because Daley wouldn't have closed a lane of traffic for a film, and now they had entire streets closed." Hogan is now business manager of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local 476, which represents more than 800 crew members on Chicago sets. Before 1980, it had 300 members. Jane Alderman, a well-known local casting director who retired last year, said, "All the things Chicago has to make a movie, like crews of people who know what they're doing, just didn't exist at that time." In fact, the Chicago Film Office was microscopic — a minor part of the mayor's press office — and hadn't established itself until interest from "The Blues Brothers" led to both a need for movie productions to run more smoothly and a need to attract more movie business.

Ron Falzone, an assistant film professor at Columbia College Chicago, was an intern in the Chicago-based Illinois Film Office in 1979. A year earlier, he said, the most his office could brag about was an architecture poll that ranked Chicago among the most beautiful cities in the world. "Then 'Blues Brothers' arrived and became this dividing line in terms of what was possible. What it said to Hollywood was: 'Chicago will do whatever you need to get a movie made here. Just please clean up after yourselves.' That was the message we sent. And the right film received it." Said Rich Moskal, director of the Chicago Film Office since 1996: The over-the-top scope of "The Blues Brothers" (a $32 million film when $8 million production budgets were average) served as "a lesson in how to develop a (film) office and deal with the industry, while respecting concerns of the community. It was before my time, but, as I understand, it got made the way movies were made here then — a mix of carte blanche and finding permission through back channels."

•••

Lucy Salenger leaned toward the widescreen TV in her Hyde Park condo and set her tortoiseshell frames on her nose. Jake and Elwood Blues, Belushi and Aykroyd, 30 and 27 when the film was shot, were hugging at the gates of the Joliet Correction Center, which Salenger had pushed Landis to use. Salenger — "the woman who built the film industry in Illinois," as Oprah Winfrey once described her (Winfrey later hired Salenger to help build Harpo Studios) — was the head of the Illinois Film Office in 1979. "Oh, look at those guys," she said lovingly, clapping a hand to her cheek. She hadn't seen the movie in years, she said.

"I would fly to Los Angeles and ask studios to just visit," she said. "And they'd say, 'Aren't dust balls running through Chicago?' I'm from Southern California. I know the temperament, but Chicago offered new visuals, (film) equipment was getting light, more films were on location. Why not here?"

This meant picking up hesitant directors at O'Hare to scout locations, driving Robert Altman and Sidney Poitier around "in a state car with no shocks."

Many of the people instrumental to production of "The Blues Brothers" said the biggest hurdle to clear was Daley's legacy. He had a reputation for not cooperating with prospective filmmakers because he feared Hollywood would only exploit Chicago's gangland history. Landis heard that Daley once saw an actor playing a Chicago cop take a bribe and resented the image. Others say his resistance to production even lost Chicago the show that became "Streets of San Francisco." Dominick Frigo, the Chicago police lieutenant in charge of special events in 1979, said Daley meant well, but when Frigo became the primary go-between for filmmakers and the city, he would get into arguments with his superiors about the necessity for film production.

"They would say, 'Are you crazy? We can't assign police to a movie,'" Frigo, 83, said. "I would say, 'We're losing a lot of money over this.' I would explain that movies are going to be set in Chicago regardless. But we could control those images, and get the money back into the city."

Nevertheless, Frigo was not in awe of filmmaking. Assigned to "Blues Brothers," he insisted police cars not involved with a stunt be driven by off-duty officers. He organized the chases on Lake Shore Drive and remembers tourists accidentally driving into the scene. He said he once grabbed Landis by the shirt because a police officer in the film "used foul language." "I didn't approve and said, 'I don't know if you ever met anyone from Chicago, but we don't take this crap.'" He also remembers having to talk city departments into performing the smallest of tasks, such as opening a fire hydrant for a scene.

Still, when production reached Daley Plaza — a sequence shot over Labor Day weekend requiring tanks, helicopters, several hundred actors and costing $3.5 million, according to news reports at the time — Landis found himself without permission from Cook County commissioners to shoot in the old Cook County building. So he said he visited Sidney Korshak, a powerful Chicago lawyer and fixer with mob ties (who died in 1996). "Within 24 hours, I got a call, and we were set," Landis said. As for Belushi driving through the corner windows of the Richard J. Daley Center, Julie Chandler was location manager and recalled a $17,000 bill to replace the glass. "We couldn't get anybody to come out because they would not work Labor Day. They would only come out at 5 a.m. on Tuesday morning."

•••

By the time production wrapped in October, word had made it to Hollywood about "The Blues Brothers" shoot, Salenger said, and three more movies began filming here — Steve McQueen's "The Hunter," "My Bodyguard," with Matt Dillon, and Robert Redford's "Ordinary People," though the latter filmed mostly on the North Shore. While Landis was crashing Chicago police cars along Lower Wacker Drive — Universal, which made the film, bought more than 60 of the vehicles — "The Hunter" was driving a car off the Marina Towers into the Chicago River. Decades later, Moskal said, it's not unusual for his office to get calls from producers asking if Chicago has anything they can destroy, a question he ties to 1979. "But today I would hate to have the reputation as a place where filmmakers can do anything. Within reason, maybe," he said. "On the other hand, flip a truck end over end down LaSalle (as in "The Dark Knight"), that sends a particular message."

As does a 30 percent tax credit for productions in Illinois, enacted in 2008, though competition among states for films has grown so intense that New York now offers a 35 percent credit and Michigan offers a 42 percent credit. In 1979, the only thing Chicago had to offer, Salenger said, "was the ability to try and cut red tape."

Few claim "The Blues Brothers" changed filmmaking here overnight — retired casting director Alderman, for instance, pointed out that the industry has gone through dramatic swings, generating $24 million in 2003, $155 million in 2007. But few debate that those 14 weeks of production in 1979 were the turning point. Indeed, to Byrne, "The Blues Brothers" should be remembered as no less than the dawn of contemporary Chicago, "part of one big push to remind people how attractive their city was." "I didn't see it any different from sidewalk dining or Taste of Chicago," both of which started during her term, she said.

Landis, however, doesn't remember it as a bright, new civic dawn. By summer 1980, he was one of the hottest directors in Hollywood. His previous film was "Animal House." "The Blues Brothers" was then one of the most expensive movies ever made (and became a blockbuster). But as he entered the lobby after the Norridge screening, he said the tension seemed elsewhere.

"These two Cook County commissioners approach Jane," Landis said. "And they start shouting at her. They were really abusive, and you could see her getting mad. 'How could you have let them do this?' they screamed. 'They ruined the floors! Troops on Daley Plaza!' It was the most bizarre scene. She's saying back, 'They replaced the floors!' A guy's shouting, 'No way we let this happen!' She's saying, 'It happened months ago! And you didn't even notice!'"

Byrne said she doesn't remember this exchange. "But it was long ago, a different time."

TAORMINA, Sicily (Hollywood Reporter) – When Jake and Elwood Blues, the protagonists in John Landis' cult classic "The Blues Brothers," claimed they were on a mission from God, the Catholic Church apparently took them at their word.

On the 30th anniversary of the film's release, "L'Osservatore Romano," the Vatican's official newspaper, called the film a "Catholic classic" and said it should be recommended viewing for Catholics everywhere.

The film is based on a skit from "Saturday Night Live." In the story, Jake and Elwood -- played by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, respectively -- embark on an unlikely road trip featuring concerts, car chases, clashes with the police and neo-Nazi groups, and attempts at revenge from a spurned lover, all, ostensibly, to raise money for the church-run orphanage where they grew up.

But aside from a brief appearance from Kathleen Freeman as a wrist-slapping nun referred to as "The Penguin" and the brothers' periodic claim that they were on a mission from God, spirituality does not play a significant role in the film.

In addition to Belushi and Aykroyd, the film featured an all-star cast including musicians James Brown, Cab Calloway, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, John Lee Hooker, and Chaka Khan, in addition to noted actors John Candy, Carrie Fisher, Charles Napier, and Henry Gibson, and cameo roles for Frank Oz, Steven Spielberg, Landis, Mr. T, and Paul Reubens.

With the recommendation, "The Blues Brothers" joins the list of dozens of films recommended by Catholic authorities that includes Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments," "Jesus of Nazareth" from Franco Zeffirelli," Mel Gibson's "The Passion of The Christ," Victor Flemming's "Joan of Arc," and "It's a Wonderful Life" from Frank Capra.

Great film. May favorite musical. It's one of those strange "lightning in a bottle" type of situations where I think they caught the perfect storm of the right actors/story/time/place and it all worked.

Nachokoolaid wrote:Great film. May favorite musical. It's one of those strange "lightning in a bottle" type of situations where I think they caught the perfect storm of the right actors/story/time/place and it all worked.

Indeed, I love this film like no other, and the extended versions with more John Lee Hooker and extended music sections are priceless.

...but I love this movie. I remember reading or seeing an interview with John Landis talking about songs and bits that were cut from the movie... and then literally thrown away because the concept of keeping Deleted Scenes was still twenty years away. Sigh.

Achievement Unlocked: TOTAL DOMINATION (Win a Werewolf Game without losing a single player on your team)

...but I love this movie. I remember reading or seeing an interview with John Landis talking about songs and bits that were cut from the movie... and then literally thrown away because the concept of keeping Deleted Scenes was still twenty years away. Sigh.

So sad, legends who are gone had timeless performances thrown out because they had no idea there might be a market for them one day...

Get McWeeny going on Landis, he's got a couple stories. My favorite regarding The Blues Brothers is the one about blowing up the store. Every one of the demolitions guys told him to use propane, but no, Landis insisted on using dynamite. The explosion blew out windows for about a quarter mile radius.

Tyrone_Shoelaces wrote:Get McWeeny going on Landis, he's got a couple stories. My favorite regarding The Blues Brothers is the one about blowing up the store. Every one of the demolitions guys told him to use propane, but no, Landis insisted on using dynamite. The explosion blew out windows for about a quarter mile radius.

The tenament explosion? Or the Propane tank explosion when they're in the phone booth?

Tyrone_Shoelaces wrote:Get McWeeny going on Landis, he's got a couple stories. My favorite regarding The Blues Brothers is the one about blowing up the store. Every one of the demolitions guys told him to use propane, but no, Landis insisted on using dynamite. The explosion blew out windows for about a quarter mile radius.

The tenament explosion? Or the Propane tank explosion when they're in the phone booth?

Been a while since I saw the movie and/or heard the story but I'm leaning toward the tenement. I do remember that it was a building.

Tyrone_Shoelaces wrote:Get McWeeny going on Landis, he's got a couple stories. My favorite regarding The Blues Brothers is the one about blowing up the store. Every one of the demolitions guys told him to use propane, but no, Landis insisted on using dynamite. The explosion blew out windows for about a quarter mile radius.

The tenament explosion? Or the Propane tank explosion when they're in the phone booth?

Been a while since I saw the movie and/or heard the story but I'm leaning toward the tenement. I do remember that it was a building.

Sorry the movie is kinda my life...

I have the extended DVD cut with the full length John Lee Hooker spot, god I love that movie. It's just perfect, it should be required viewing for every human with working eyesight and/or hearing.

Drew McWeeny wrote:One of the real tragedies of the entire story behind the making of "The Blues Brothers" is that it seemed to have ended the working relationship of John Landis and John Belushi because of Belushi's bad on-set behavior. That's a shame, and I'd like to believe that if Belushi had lived, he eventually would have realized that no one ever did better by him than Landis. Landis made him a movie star with "Animal House," but the work he got out of John in "The Blues Brothers" is downright miraculous. This is the movie I turn to when I need to be reminded of just what a stellar film presence Belushi was. This is a movie that I find endlessly entertaining. The music, the stunts, the music, the car chases, the comedy, the guest stars, and the MUSIC... it's just about perfect. I don't understand complaints that the film is too long, because I would happily watch the first film's characters and set pieces for hours on end. "Orange whip? Orange whip? Three Orange Whips." If you laugh when you read that, you share a secret language with other "Blues Brothers" fans. This is a huge piece of entertainment, proof that Landis should have been making one new musical a year. And in a perfect world, Belushi could have been the first great musical star since the studio days of the '50s. He could belt a song out with real rock'n'roll conviction, with enough soul to sell even the best of the songs, and he threw himself around the stage with such joyous reckless abandon that watching him dance was like going to a daredevil show. The excess of "The Blues Brothers" is amazing to behold knowing that it was all done practical, and there are days when I prefer this to "American Werewolf" as a Landis film. Just certain days, though.

Two of John Landis’ classic comedies are headed to Blu-Ray for the first time. National Lampoon’s Animal House and The Blues Brothers, both starring the late, great John Belushi, will hit stores on July 26, 2011. Originally appearing in 1978 and 1980 respectively, the hit films will run viewers $26.98 apiece.

While this cost seems a little much for a re-release we’ve all likely bought on several occasions, Universal Studios Home Entertainment is going all-out for the Blu-Ray versions, creating interactive elements to accompany the films, as well as some special features. The extras with National Lampoon’s Animal House are especially interactive and will include picture-within-a-picture cast and crew interview footage available during key film scenes, a “Music of Animal House” playlist creator, and a Scene It? game with Animal House trivia. More traditional extras will be comprised of an original documentary, a mock-u-mentary, and the theatrical trailer.

The special features with The Blues Brothers will be slightly less wild. Two versions of the film are the highlight—the original theatrical edition and the extended version with an additional fifteen minutes of film. There will also be behind-the-scenes “Stories” featurettes with John Landis, Dan Akroyd and the Blues Brothers band. Furthermore, audiences will get a highlight reel of the many Blues Brothers spin-offs and pop culture references, as well as the original theatrical trailer. Finally, there will be a supplementary segment called “Remembering John.” Belushi died in 1982, just two years after The Blues Brothers was filmed. The segment will feature cast, family, and friends sharing their best memories of the man

Two of John Landis’ classic comedies are headed to Blu-Ray for the first time. National Lampoon’s Animal House and The Blues Brothers, both starring the late, great John Belushi, will hit stores on July 26, 2011. Originally appearing in 1978 and 1980 respectively, the hit films will run viewers $26.98 apiece.

While this cost seems a little much for a re-release we’ve all likely bought on several occasions, Universal Studios Home Entertainment is going all-out for the Blu-Ray versions, creating interactive elements to accompany the films, as well as some special features. The extras with National Lampoon’s Animal House are especially interactive and will include picture-within-a-picture cast and crew interview footage available during key film scenes, a “Music of Animal House” playlist creator, and a Scene It? game with Animal House trivia. More traditional extras will be comprised of an original documentary, a mock-u-mentary, and the theatrical trailer.

The special features with The Blues Brothers will be slightly less wild. Two versions of the film are the highlight—the original theatrical edition and the extended version with an additional fifteen minutes of film. There will also be behind-the-scenes “Stories” featurettes with John Landis, Dan Akroyd and the Blues Brothers band. Furthermore, audiences will get a highlight reel of the many Blues Brothers spin-offs and pop culture references, as well as the original theatrical trailer. Finally, there will be a supplementary segment called “Remembering John.” Belushi died in 1982, just two years after The Blues Brothers was filmed. The segment will feature cast, family, and friends sharing their best memories of the man

Rich Johnston wrote:John Belushi was originally cast to play Dr Peter Venkman in the movie Ghostbusters, alongside his comedy colleague on Saturday Night Live and spinoff The Blues Brothers, Dan Aykroyd.

After his death, he was replaced in the film by another Saturday Night Live performer, Bill Murray, who agreed to make the film if his own movie project Razor’s Edge received funding.

And the appearance of the “Slimer” ghost in Ghostbusters is believed to have been modelled on John Belushi’s Animal House character, in tribute.

Well, in the first issue of IDW’s Ghostbusters ongoing series, out this Wednesday, we get up and close appearance, albeit in a the dream of Dr Raymond Stantz, Dan Ackroyd’s character, of John Belushi in full Blues Brothers gear. I doubt this will be his last appearance…

Ned Zeman wrote:The pitch was simple: “John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Blues Brothers, how about it?” But the film The Blues Brothers became a nightmare for Universal Pictures, wildly off schedule and over budget, its fate hanging on the amount of cocaine Belushi consumed. From the 1973 meeting of two young comic geniuses in a Toronto bar through the careening, madcap production of John Landis’s 1980 movie, Ned Zeman chronicles the triumph of an obsession.